UMilitary Resistance 9J8
The Civilians Got It Right:
“The War In Afghanistan Is No Longer The War Most Americans Agree We Should Fight”
[Thanks to Sandy Kelson, Veteran & Military Resistance Organization, who sent this in.]
Oct. 10, 2011 Charlotte Observer [Excerpt]
The war in Afghanistan is no longer the war most Americans agree we should fight.
A CBS News poll released last Monday found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans say the United States should not be involved in Afghanistan, a reversal of opinion from two years ago when a majority supported the U.S. mission there.
“The single largest failure of the anti-war movement at this point is the lack of outreach to the troops.”
Tim Goodrich, Iraq Veterans Against The War
UIRAQ WAR REPORTS
Adrian Mills, 23: Soldier With Big Heart, Passion To Serve
Spc. Adrian G. Mills
October 8, 2011By David Ibata, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Every evening for the past week, family members and friends have come to light candles at a memorial on the front lawn of the house where Adrian Mills grew up in Newnan.
“I just can’t tell you how kind the people are from Coweta County. They are still lighting candles … a vigil will be every evening at dusk until Sunday,” said Jeff Blehschmidt, stepfather of Adrian Mills. “That candlelight vigil they’re doing here is being done around the globe every night in his memory.”
Army Spc. Adrian Glyn “A.J.” Mills, 23, died Sept. 29 in Kirkuk, Iraq, from wounds sustained when his unit came under insurgent mortar fire, the Army said. Spc. Mills was assigned to the 272nd Military Police Company, 519th Military Police Battalion, 1st Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Fort Polk.
The soldier’s body has been flown home, and visitation is set for 5 to 8 p.m. Sunday and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday in McKoon Funeral Home, Newnan. The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the chapel of the funeral home. McKoon is handling arrangements.
Mr. Blehschmidt set up the memorial to his son, a series of full-size American flags and dozens of smaller ones. Visitors have added candles, flowers and other items to the display.
As a teen, Spc. Mills served in the Civil Air Patrol and Northgate High School’s Air Force Junior ROTC. “That kid wanted to go in and help his country since he was in 7th grade,” Mr. Blehschmidt said.
But instead of joining the Air Force after graduating from Northgate in 2007, Spc. Mills joined the Army.
“He wanted more action than I think the Air Force would give him – and the Air Force couldn’t give him a guaranteed job as a military policeman, and that’s what he wanted to do,” Mr. Blehschmidt said.
Air Force Master Sgt. Ron Wolfe, who oversees Northgate’s Junior ROTC program, said the young man’s leadership abilities were readily apparent. “He was a quiet leader. He wasn’t demanding. He led by a positive example,” Master Sgt. Wolfe said.
A student when Northgate’s ROTC was being started, Spc. Mills was the first to be involved in the school’s color guard and its Saber Team special events squad. “We didn’t even have uniforms yet – nothing more than an Air Force T-shirt – and he was doing our first color guards at football games,” Master Sgt. Wolfe said.
Cassie McDonald, who grew up a few doors down from her friend and served with him in Northgate’s ROTC program, said, “When it came to organizing different events to help the community, A.J. was one of the first ones to jump in, which illustrated how big his heart was.”
For example, after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, Spc. Mills helped lead a school-wide drive to gather items desperately needed by the survivors – more than 15,000 pounds of “clothing, toys, diapers, wipes, water, anything and everything,” Master Sgt. Wolfe said.
Spc. Mills also is survived by his mother, Marie Elaine Blehschmidt, his wife, Sandra, who he met while stationed in Germany, and his sister, Maegon Mills of Houston. The military has flown Sandra’s parents, Franz and Doris Abel, to the United States from Heidelberg to attend the funeral.
The young soldier will be buried at Georgia National Cemetery, Canton, next to his friend Army Pvt. 2nd Colman Joseph Meadows III, who died in Afghanistan in December 2008. “A.J.,” Ms. McDonald said, “wanted everybody to remember what their freedom is worth and that life is short, so live it with no regrets.”
UAFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
JBLM Specialist Killed In Afghanistan
Oct 10, 2011 Army Times
A Washington-based soldier has been killed in Afghanistan, the Defense Department announced Sunday.
Spc. Ricardo Cerros Jr., 24, of Salinas, Calif., died Saturday in Logar Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire.
He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.
Fallen Soldier Dies Days Before Coming Home
Sep 27, 2011By LaMar Holliday, KIII
Sergeant Rafael Bigai Baez was scheduled to come home this Saturday, but he was killed on a mission in Afghanistan last Friday on his 28th birthday.
Baez left behind an 8 year old daughter, a 4 year old son, and his fiancee he’s been dating for more than a year, Yasiri Pablo.
Pablo and her fiance, Sergeant Rafael Bigai Baez were going to put those plans of getting married and seeing the world into action when he came home on Saturday.
But when Yasiri didn’t get her daily phone call from him, she knew something was wrong when she heard Baez’s mother screaming at the other end of a phone line.
“First thing I could hear is screaming and crying and I’m thinking, oh my God, what’s wrong, she said ‘they’re here, they’re here’, and I’m like who’s here, and she said ‘the soldiers,’“ Yasiri said.
That’s when Yasiri knew the love of her life wouldn’t be coming home.
Baez was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol, but Yasiri was hoping this was all a dream.
“I thought he was going to come back injured, which I wouldn’t care how he would have came back, I would have healed him, took care of him, baby him, anything,” she expressed.
But once the reality set in, all she could do was hold onto cherished memories.
“He’ll get me mad just to get mad just to see my face reaction and after I get mad, he’ll bust out laughing like, ‘I’m just joking.’“
Laughing, singing, and dancing, all this and their engagement photos on a makeshift memorial set up in her living room is what she has to remember her fallen soldier.
They had plans to see the world and she says though he’s not here physically, she still plans to carry out their dreams while he’s with her in spirit.
Baez will be buried in Santiago, Dominican Republic, which is where he’s from.
He joined the army when he moved to Puerto Rico.
Funeral arrangements haven’t been set, but his fiancee says it will be sometime next week.
Yasiri said Baez had wanted to serve his country since he was 8 years old, and she said he died doing what he loved.
Yasiri and a family member will be traveling to the Dominican Republic for the funeral.
They ask for the community’s prayers as they travel.
POLITICIANS CAN’T BE COUNTED ON TO HALT THE BLOODSHED
THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE WARS
More Toast
A truck used to carry supplies for foreign military forces in Afghanistan, after it was hit by a bomb attack on the outskirts of Landikotal, northwest Pakistan October 10, 2011. A bomb exploded in the truck killing one person, local officials said. REUTERS/Shahid Shinwari
REALLY BAD PLACE TO BE:
ALL HOME NOW
U.S. soldiers from Alpha Co, 2nd Battalion 35th Infantry, Task Force “Cacti”, patrol near Combat Outpost Penich in Khas Konar district in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan October 1, 2011. REUTERS/Erik De Castro
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UMILITARY NEWS
NOT ANOTHER DAY
NOT ANOTHER DOLLAR
NOT ANOTHER LIFE
Army Pfc. Jazmare Logan of Mansfield, Ohio plays with her daughter Jazell Logan before her 82nd Airborne’s Combat Aviation Brigade deploys to Afghanistan from Fort Bragg, N.C., Sept. 12, 2011. (AP Photo/Jim R. Bounds)...
“American Military Deaths In Afghanistan, And The Communities From Which TheseSoldiers, Sailors, Airmen, And Marines Came”
“Americans Who Have Died In Afghanistan Are Disproportionately White And Native American Working-Class Young People With No More Than A High School Education”
“We Find That Nearly Half Of All Casualties Came From Large Metropolitan Core Cities And Their Surrounding Suburbs, Not From Rural Areas”
Casualties came not from the poorest cities and counties but disproportionately from counties with somewhat lower than median income typical of solidly working-class communities.
October 2011 By Michael Zweig, Center for Study of Working Class Life [Excerpts]
Michael Zweig is professor of economics and director of the Center for Study of Working Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
**************************************************************
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the start of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, this study reports a detailed evaluation of every U.S. soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine who died there from the start of the war in October 2001 through December 31, 2010.
The study is based on information drawn from obituaries and tribute pages for all 1,446 casualties.
It also reports characteristics of the communities from which the casualties came, based on county-level Census and other government data.
Our findings contradict several aspects of conventional wisdom.
Blacks and Latinos are underrepresented among casualties compared with their share of the population as a whole.
Americans who have died in Afghanistan are disproportionately white and Native American working-class young people with no more than a high school education.
Twenty-three women were among the dead. They were nearly three times as likely as men to be college graduates and nearly five times as likely as men to be graduates of West Point or another of the military academies.
The greatest burden of casualties in numbers fell on the south and Midwest, but the highest casualty rates were in rural and micropolitan counties in the northeast.
We find that nearly half of all casualties came from large metropolitan core cities and their surrounding suburbs, not from rural areas.
Rural areas and small towns have disproportionately high casualty rates (compared with the number of people living in those places), but relatively few casualties come from those communities because so few people live there.
While 98 percent of core counties in metropolitan areas with more than one million people (all but one of 58) contributed at least one death to the total, only 41 percent of suburban counties in these major metropolitan areas, and just 7 percent of rural counties experienced an Afghan war death in the study period.
Casualties came not from the poorest cities and counties but disproportionately from counties with somewhat lower than median income typical of solidly working-class communities.
Contrary to expectations that come from the idea of an “economic draft,” we find that casualty counties (those from which casualties come) have unemploymentand poverty rates no higher than the country as a whole.
For some county types, average poverty and unemployment rates were significantly lower than the rates for allcounties of that type.
UMORE:
It’s An Urban, Working Class Casualty List:
“Over Three-Quarters Come From Cities That Have More Than 50,000 People”
“Almost Half Come From Cities And The Suburban Areas With More Than A Million People’
October 10, 2011 Michael Zweig, Democracy Now [Excerpt]
AMY GOODMAN: And the area of the country that they come from?
MICHAEL ZWEIG: Well, here again, often we hear they come from rural areas where there’s no real economic opportunity. It turns out to be not quite so true.
As I said a minute ago, over three-quarters come from cities that have more than 50,000 people.
Almost half come from cities and the suburban areas with more than a million people.
The city that has the biggest casualty loss is Los Angeles—or the county, Los Angeles County, with 28.
We looked at five different kinds of counties. We looked at the core, urban, major metropolitan area counties, and then their suburban ring.
And then we looked at counties which have cities or around cities of less than a million but more than 50,000.
And those three together count for 77 percent of all the casualties.
UFORWARD OBSERVATIONS
“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.
“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.
“We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.”
Frederick Douglass, 1852
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“These Protesters Have Not Come To Work Within The System”
“They Have No Faith, Nor Should They, In The Political System Or The Two Major Political Parties”
“This Movement Is An Effort To Take Our Country Back”
‘It Can Be Articulated In One Word—REBELLION’
Protesters affiliated with the “Occupy Wall Street” march through the Financial District in New York, on Monday, Oct. 10, 2011. The march started and finished in Zuccotti Park. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton)
[Thanks to Sandy Kelson, Veteran & Military Resistance Organization, who sent this in.]
October 10, 2011 By Chris Hedges, TruthDig.com [Excerpts]
Ketchup, a petite 22-year-old from Chicago with wavy red hair and glasses with bright red frames, arrived in Zuccotti Park in New York on Sept. 17. She had a tent, a rolling suitcase, 40 dollars’ worth of food, the graphic version of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and a sleeping bag.
She had no return ticket, no idea what she was undertaking, and no acquaintances among the stragglers who joined her that afternoon to begin the Wall Street occupation. She decided to go to New York after reading the Canadian magazine Adbusters, which called for the occupation, although she noted that when she got to the park Adbusters had no discernable presence.
The lords of finance in the looming towers surrounding the park, who toy with money and lives, who make the political class, the press and the judiciary jump at their demands, who destroy the ecosystem for profit and drain the U.S. Treasury to gamble and speculate, took little notice of Ketchup or any of the other scruffy activists on the street below them.
The elites consider everyone outside their sphere marginal or invisible.
And what significance could an artist who paid her bills by working as a waitress have for the powerful? What could she and the others in Zuccotti Park do to them?
What threat can the weak pose to the strong?
Those who worship money believe their buckets of cash, like the $4.6 million JPMorgan Chase gave a few days ago to the New York City Police Foundation, can buy them perpetual power and security.
Masters all, kneeling before the idols of the marketplace, blinded by their self-importance, impervious to human suffering, bloated from unchecked greed and privilege, were about to be taught a lesson in the folly of hubris.
The goal to people like Ketchup is very, very clear.
It can be articulated in one word—REBELLION.
These protesters have not come to work within the system.
They are not pleading with Congress for electoral reform.
They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power.
They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties.